On the mild side: Why travellers are increasingly opting for ‘soft’ adventure travel | Canada Voices

For Mahreen Dasoo, a rainy day in Florence, Italy went from a potential recipe for disappointment to one of her family’s most exciting vacations. In October 2024, while visiting the Italian hotspot with her husband and then three-year-old daughter, the Toronto-based mom was looking for a rain-friendly activity that would be memorable, culturally immersive and, most importantly, engaging for their daughter. So, they settled on pasta. Or more specifically, a pasta- and lasagna-making class.

It was such a positive experience that two years later, cooking classes have become a family tradition. Every time Dasoo, her husband and their daughter travel, they make sure to fit in a culturally and regionally-specific class.

“It allows us to interact with locals and other travellers and really soak in the culture through their cuisines,” Dasoo says. “The stories you hear and the memories you make are priceless; it also feels a little less stressful than a hike or something [that] ends up leaving us all overstimulated and tired.”

A cooking class may not sound like the most adrenaline-pumping travel activity, especially compared to cliff diving or surfing in the chilly waters of the Atlantic, but it’s part of a growing trend: ‘soft’ adventure travel. Characterized by low-risk activities such as wine tasting, snorkeling, biking, whale-watching, fishing and food experiences, soft adventure travel blends excitement with accessibility, community, cultural immersion, education and rest and relaxation, allowing travellers to explore new places without breaking a sweat. And Canadians are all in. A recent survey by YouGov found that 61 per cent of Canadian travellers planned to prioritize soft travel in 2025, with particularly strong interest from Gen Z.

“[Soft adventure travel] is anything that’s not your day-to-day activity, but isn’t an extreme sport,” says Rachel Dodds, a professor at the Ted Rogers School of Hospitality and Tourism Management. For Dodds, who specializes in sustainable and regenerative tourism, the popularity of this community-focused form of tourism makes sense given our heavily tech-mediated lives.

“There’s a real search for authenticity,” she says. “We’re always on screens, we are constantly hooked up to the internet. [People are] looking for something in terms of stimulation that’s not another Netflix show, or another dopamine hit [from] watching Instagram reels.”

You can find soft adventure anywhere – including right here at home. If you’re interested in the culture and history of the Maritimes, immerse yourself in Mi’kmaw cultural experiences at Nova Scotia’s Kejimkujik National Park and National Historic Site. These guided tours, which run throughout the summer and fall, take visitors to a traditional encampment and wigwam, and also include insight about present-day Mi’kmaw culture.

On the country’s west coast, spend the day whale-watching off British Columbia’s Vancouver Island or get up-close-and-personal to your favourite marine life with sea kayaking tours. (For travellers visiting Ontario in the summer, Tobermory’s guided underwater tours of shipwrecks hit a similar note).

If you’re looking to embrace the country’s more frigid temperatures, try your hand at ice fishing in Manitoba’s Interlake Region. We’d recommend Gimli, Manitoba’s “pearl of the prairies.” It’s a community with Icelandic roots and every winter, a migrating fishing village (known as Ís þorp) pops up to offer prime ice fishing opportunities along with other lo-fi winter activities,

And foodies need look no further than Canada’s Secret Food Tours, which host guided food tours in cities across the country, with a big emphasis not only on food, but the culture and history of the city you’re exploring.

Since that first cooking class in Florence, Dasoo and her family have crafted churros in Mexico as well as done sushi- and matcha-making classes in Osaka, Japan, the latter at the request of their daughter. They’re hoping to explore some of Canada’s offerings next, maybe in the form of a seafood adventure in Atlantic Canada. These experiences have become a way to make fond memories for the family of three, and an easy, low-stakes way for Dasoo – a long-time lover of travel and adventure – to continue engaging with something she’s always considered part of her identity.

“As someone who had been mourning my pre-baby travel adventures, [that first class] ignited something within me. [I felt] like I had reclaimed a part of myself I was scared I might have lost,” she says.